The Martial Unity

RUMBLE!!!

The war between the homoarachnoid army and the triangle of protection that kept them at bay from an unconscious Ria raged on. Neither side appeared to be gaining on the other. Arastia, Kane, and Sayfeel pushed themselves to the limit just to keep the army from reaching Ria.

The battlefield was ravaged by the dense, vast wave of turquoise that kept charging into the one point, as water did into a whirlpool. While a zone of shadows, a hurricane of blood, and a region of green flashes created an uneven triangle.

The blood hurricane created by Arastia was the largest out of the three, taking on a larger portion of the army that charged towards Ria. Out of the three pathwalkers protecting the unconscious girl, she was the strongest despite being the youngest by far. She was only thirty-one and had managed to claim a spot in the top ten most powerful pathwalkers in human civilization.

The second largest was none other than Kane, whose Corporeal Realm allowed him to edge out the Transcendent Candidate, who, as strong as he was, didn’t have an additional Realm of power above the Sage Realm. The Corporeal Realm allowed Kane to move at extraordinary speeds with immense fluidity and agility, as if he simply existed at those speeds.

Sage Sayfeel leveraged his newfound enlightenment to become a killing machine that drowned his targets in complete and utter darkness in all of their senses before effortlessly killing them with just the tiniest of nicks, allowing the poison to do the rest of the work.

The war could be seen from outer space because of how vast and intense it was.

A turquoise ocean washing against a red hurricane, shadows, and green flashes that covered an entire tectonic plate.

It was a sight to behold from those who hovered in outer space.

And yet, everybody aboard the Blood Arc knew that it couldn’t last.

Something needed to change.

And something did.

”Bridge, Cargo Deck 12. We have established tractor-lock on Package Omega at two kilometers out. Matching inertial vectors now.”

”Inertial vectors matched.”

”Acquiring Package Omega.”

Commander Helsia’s blood-red eyes lit up with a hint of enthusiasm at the report as she stood at the helm of the command center aboard the Blood Arc. A video stream of the cameras on the surface of the Blood Arc featured the electromagnetic tractor beams grabbing onto a special package deployed to the fleet carrier from the surface of Planet Amadeus III.

It contained extensive deep sampling of the crust of Planet Amadeus III, acquiring samples of all the layers, the soils, and the micro-biodiversity within the planet in one singular sample.

It was exactly what they needed.

To activate Protocol Omega.

”Sample extracted.”

”Transmitting sample to compartment BA-LJ64 as per protocol.”

”Requesting Authorization.”

”Authorized. Activate Teleportation Protocol #A-J77-3156 to compartment BA-LJ64,” Commander Hestia transmitted the command from her neural inlay to the ship’s mainframe, activating the internal teleportation transportation systems of the ship.

WHOOSH

She disappeared, appearing before a special compartment that sealed behind numerous reinforced invintium-laced doors, surrounded by a squad of powerful hemosapien guards who simply saluted the commander upon her arrival.

The moment she stepped before the doors, transmitting a command to open them. A scanning apparatus emerged, directing an intensive deep-body scanning beam at her that covered from head to toe, gathering data on every biological parameter conceivable. The compartment and its contents were so important and dangerous that the verification protocols were of the highest and strictest caliber.

If even a single biometric parameter was off, then the compartment would not be able to be opened.

”Helsia Avalla. Naval Commander of Blood Arc-A164. Authorization level: Sufficient,” an automated voice declared.

VMMM

The door opened to reveal several more buffer compartments and doors that opened and closed one after another, scanning the compartment each time once more, to make absolutely certain.

A whole minute passed before she finally entered the compartment.

The very moment she did, the breath in her lungs sharply exited her body as her eyes widened at what she beheld with her own two eyes for the first time in her life.

The air around the compartment was different.

The atmosphere grew overwhelming.

It was charged with power.

Not the loud, brash, physical power of Martial Sages.

No.

It was a higher kind of power.

Silent, yet supreme.

Quiet, yet absolute.

A higher kind of power unlike anything she had ever beheld in her entire life.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

She recalled an old memory from thirteen years ago.

From the day the aliens invaded Gaia Prime, then known as just Gaia.

A day that should have been the end of human civilization.

And yet, it wasn’t.

Humanity had survived.

No, it was more accurate to say humanity had been saved.

By a power that could only be that of a god.

The very fabric of reality and the laws of physics that governed it, absolute as they otherwise were, seemed to… quiver.

As if all of reality were merely an image reflected upon the surface of water.

Water.

That was what she saw when she looked at the floating vial at the very center of the compartment, surrounded by a powerful force field.

Within its depths was what could be described as a drop of death and chaos incarnate.

It flowed within the vial harmlessly, never remaining stationary.

Its colors were radiant and ever-changing.

She could from its depths the nascent presence of a mind.

A consciousness.

A faintly familiar presence.

She gulped. ”Transmit Package Omega.”

The command caused a spherical sampling unit to teleport directly into the compartment and into her hands. The naval commander and the President of the Blood Humanist Society were the only people allowed within the command room, requiring her to manually deliver the sampling package to the drop of the Tide of Samsara.

She stepped into the force field that allowed her to pass before delivering the sampling unit to the vial.

CLACK

Pure alarm erupted in the naval commander as the vial spontaneously opened, allowing the Tide of Samsara to slip out. She almost had a heart attack as the powerful poison flowed out, covering the spherical sampling unit as if it were a curious octopus.